Leaving quite a legacy

When the Marina High boys’ varsity basketball team plays its final game of the season in late-February, it will be the last time the Vikings will be led by Roger Holmes. The dean of Sunset League coaches, Holmes announced last week that he will step down as head coach at the conclusion of the season.

Holmes — who took pride in creating a family atmosphere within his program — decided it was time to step aside after discussing the matter with his immediate family: wife Debbie, son Brendan, a former Marina ball boy who is in his final year of a four-year varsity career, and daughter Kayla.

“The decision to step down as head coach was a tough one, but at the same time, an easy one,” said Holmes, who recently turned 50. “The years really do go by too quickly and it seems as though it was yesterday that we started on this journey at Marina.

“Brendan’s playing will last four more years and I wanted to be able to attend as many (of his) games as possible. The incredible time consumption of coaching would make that impossible. I also want to be free to support whatever activity that my daughter will be involved with as she begins high school.”

Two years ago, Holmes took a brief sabbatical from coaching during the second-half of the 2007-08 season, due to a heart ailment he said was diagnosed as a “low ejection fraction.” He later returned to the sideline.

Holmes was hired as head coach at Marina in May 1994. In his 16 years at the helm, his teams have attained several superlatives: three league championships, a couple of CIF quarterfinal appearances, two semifinal appearances and a CIF finals appearance in 2004 — the same year the Vikings made the state playoffs. He took over a Marina program that was looking for stability. At the time, Holmes said he became the school’s fourth head coach in a four-year period.

The program found the stability it sought.

“It really did,” said Andrew Meyer, who played on Holmes’ first two teams and was a varsity assistant to Holmes for 10 years.

It was Meyer, along with assistant Tom McCanna, who took over coaching duties when Holmes took his leave of absence in January 2008.